Posted
by
EditorDavid
on Saturday November 25, 2017 @08:34PM
from the billionaires-with-lawyers dept.

An anonymous reader quotes BuzzFeed:
In a federal bankruptcy court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for venture capitalist Peter Thiel objected to the ongoing sale process of Gawker.com, arguing that the billionaire has been unfairly excluded from bidding for the assets of the defunct news website... Whoever ends up buying the site will also buy its archives, which are still up, and will have the right to do with them what they want, including delete them. In the filing, Thiel's lawyers allege that he was prevented from receiving information in regard to a potential bid for Gawker.com by plan administrator William Holden and his counsel, Gregg Galardi, following a Wall Street Journal story in October that said Holden and Galardi had started to market the website to potential buyers...

The Wall Street Journal reported that Holden has been exploring the sale of Gawker.com since July, and that he recently marketed the site's potential legal claims against Thiel as part of its appeal. The marketing of those claims is at the center of Thiel's complaint, in which his lawyers argue that Holden should not be able to conduct a sale of those claims and ask that the court drop a motion that allows for discovery to move forward. Thiel's representatives also said that they contacted those administrating the sale of Gawker.com last month "to express Mr. Thiel's interest in participating in the sale process," but that they had been rebuffed and then ignored.
Thiel's complaint calls him the "most able and logical purchaser."

Ah yes the magical pizza parlour that used some sort of magic to hide children in an evil sec dungeon that does not exist on this plane of reality (literally, there is no basement). Damn you normies for not believing that the darataddly reptilians are phase shifting inter dimensional rape dungeons into pizza shops.maaaaaaaaaaa I said I ate my meds

The argument to be made to a bankruptcy judge will likely be that if Thiel is willing to pay more than anyone else then it should be sold to him so that money can be used to settle Gawker's outstanding debts. Barring him from the bidding may reduce the amount paid and thus harm the creditors.

I do find myself wondering every time I see him mentioned whether Thiel actually has any redeeming qualities at all.

Scientology successfully sued Cult Awareness Network to death, then bought up the trademark, the website, the mailing lists, and the email contacts. If you call Cult Awareness Network, you're talking to a trained Scientologist, ready to take your money, plant you in front of an e-meter, hypnotize you, convince you that your body and bad thoughts are made of reborn galactic citizens called Thetans, and suck you dry of money and time.

He wants access to information on Gawker he says he needs to make a bid, and claims the administrator is withholding.

He's not entitled to squat, he's just trying to get access to details on the writers and journalists, their salaries, addresses, employee records etc. He's using the sale of Gawker as an excuse to try to obtain those by way of nuisance lawsuit to block the asset sale.

Actually, under US bankruptcy law the survival of the company as a complete entity is more important than the satisfactory conclusion of all the debts. Although the ability to repay the debts is important the ability of the company to survive and continue to employ people in the future is equally weighted.

What you argue would result in liquidation in almost every bankruptcy case and liquidation is actually the last result after every other option has been exhausted.

I do find myself wondering every time I see him mentioned whether Thiel actually has any redeeming qualities at all.Reply to This

Gawker published somebody's sex tape against their will, and when a judge ordered them to take it down, they refused and published an article bragging about ignoring the judge. Without Thiel, the victim was unable to afford the legal costs necessary to get them to stop. Thanks to Thiel, the victim got justice.

I'd phrase it more like, Thiel paid for people to sue them for their repeated wrong-doings, until one day Gawker finally said "WHAT, YOU THINK YOU CAN HURT US? YOU CAN'T HURT US IF WE KILL OURSELVES FIRST" and then they proceeded to publicly antagonize the judge, violate court orders, knowingly misrepresent their finances to the court and testify under oath that they'd publish child porn. And that's just the highlight reel.

Depends on the money that buys it. With the right connections, they can buy dirt Gawker dirt cheap, and then use their already bought judges, to flip the case and voilÃ top investment and Thiel meets the vicousness old money, which is why he likely wants buy.

Anyhow the judge's order was later declared unconstitutional. That didn't stop Hogan from sueing them and bankrupting them. And now Gawker is Thiel's bitch. They pissed him off by outing him as hay while he was on a business trip to Saudi Arabi

You are not wrong here. Indeed, Thiel never accused Gawker of slandering anybody.

by outing him

WTF? Thiel was openly gay [wikipedia.org] years before Gawker first heard of him... Get your alternative facts closer to reality [wikipedia.org].

the news was true.

"Revenge porn" is nearly always true as well — the videos and photos are unaltered. Is it Ok to do it? How about "doxing"?

His revenge campaign is petty and should be thwarted by all means available.

His revenge campaign is complete — he caused the assholes to run into the ground. He just wants to piss at their crash-site. To "thwart" him, you have to offer the Gawker's creditors a deal better than Thiel is offering. Pony up the cash, or shut up.

Yes, usually it is up to the sellers to decide. But Gawker aren't the sellers any more — they are bankrupt and owned by their creditors, represented by the bankruptcy judge. It is the judge's duty to liquidate the property in a manner most profitable to the creditors. Hence my statement: whoever wants to thwart Thiel, has to offer more money.

Gawker reported on a bunch of his shadier business dealings. Gawker actually did a lot of real journalism and used the tabloid stuff to pay for it. Muck racking is a pretty vital part of a Democracy and we just lost one of the biggest rakes.

His revenge campaign is petty and should be thwarted by all means available.

Why? It's an honest question. Gawker wasn't bankrupted because they simply reported the news. Gawker was bankrupted because they had a lot of shady dealings and ultimately got snagged by it in the court of law.

I am honestly asking why should this person be prohibited from purchasing the company? If your argument is based on morality then perhaps you should reexamine the situation.

I am honestly asking why should this person be prohibited from purchasing the company? If your argument is based on morality then perhaps you should reexamine the situation.

They likely believe he shouldn't be able to buy them because Thiel isn't left wing therefor can't keep that same level of muckracking that they'd been doing for years. It was only a matter of time before Gawker managed to commit suduko anyway.

The writing was already on the wall for that, the entire buy-up by univision was funny though, especially when all the reporters who say they're bloggers, then claim they're reporters when convenient started quitting because univision required actual ethical standards

By what metric? "Freedom" as we currently know it is only a couple hundred years old. There are many civilizations that have survived that long all the way up and down the spectrum, mostly on the end of less free. And a few that have lasted 1000+.

The US is already looking a little frail as people continually trade off their freedoms for short-term profit (not even their own short-term profit in a lot of cases) or the illusion of security against threats that are flashy but have a tiny probability of occu

This is merely an excellent way to acquire new businesses. If the math is there, and you want it, Bankrupt the business first, then buy it. My free market senses are tingling with the new business model. What is more, it is approved in the Holy Bible - reference Uriah the Hittite, killed by King David, who was already yencing Uriah's wife, knocked her up, and after having Uriah out of the way, married her.
So all is good.

It's not news actually. Back in 89 I was working for a computer company that made flip-up cases for PCs. The owner was looking for funding an a lawyer came along and said he'd line it up. The owner made purchases based on the agreement but the lawyer bailed on it leaving the owner holding the bag and the business going under. The owner was rumored to have bailed after finding out this is what the lawyer did; offer funding, bail on it, then swoop in and buy the assets after the business goes bust. We lost our last 6 weeks of pay trying to stick it out.

Microsoft perfected that process back in the day. They'd make a great offer for a company's technology. Microsoft would agree to buy X units, at a price very profitable to the company, after they made a few improvements or integrations with Microsoft's other software. Of course, the target company wasn't allowed to sell to anyone else during that period. In the fine print Microsoft would get right of first refusal if the company was ever sold.

The company would work to make the improvements and integrations Microsoft asked for, unable to take any other customers during that time. When it came time for Microsoft to accept delivery, they'd sit on it for a month and not reply. Then they'd decline delivery, asking for more changes. When that run-around finally ended they'd eventually have to accept delivery, so then they sit in making the payment. Sometimes the contract might call for a late fee, which doesn't matter when they aren't paying anyway. A year after the contract was signed, without being allowed to sell to any other customers and having not been paid by Microsoft, the company would go under. The owners might well be behind on their mortgage at this point. That's when Microsoft would offer to buy the company for a pittance. They did the same dance over and over again.

The anger directed at Thiel over the Gawker case is reminiscent of the anger about the DNC's hacked emails. Those who are angry completely overlook that if Gawker/the DNC hadn't done anything wrong, there wouldn't have been any fallout in the first place. Gawker never would've been sued for publishing Bollea's sex tape. There would've been no evidence of the Democratic party leadership tampering with the primary process. They don't want to hear the message, so they do their best to ignore it and try to shoot the messenger.

If Thiel had bought judges to engineer some grave miscarriage of justice, I'd have some sympathy for Gawker. But the fundamental truth is most people don't think the right to a free press includes the right to publicize a sex tape recorded without consent. Literally everyone can see themselves somehow winding up in Bollea's (Hulk Hogan's) situation, and they do not want anyone, even the press, to have the right to publicize that tape without their consent. That, plain and simple, is why Gawker lost in a jury trial. That's what bankrupted them, not Thiel helping pay for the lawsuit.

If you don't want to be bankrupted, don't do stupid, illegal, or ethically questionable things which could bankrupt you. This above all: to thine own self be true. Follow that rule and the only thing you have to worry about is being framed. I think Wikileaks is biased and disagree with its MO, but that doesn't mean I automatically side with the people whose stupid, illegal, or ethically questionable secrets Wikileaks reveals. On the contrary I usually think those people are despicable for doing those stupid, illegal, or ethically questionable things.

The hilarity is that all the people screaming about gamergate, the alt-right, neonazis, and trying to cast gawker as a martyr for freedom of the press are the exact same people who lost their shit over the fappening. They're perfectly alright with publishing stolen sex tapes and nudes... as long as it's not of an attractive woman.

The hilarity is that all the people screaming about gamergate, the alt-right, neonazis, and trying to cast gawker as a martyr for freedom of the press are the exact same people who lost their shit over the fappening. They're perfectly alright with publishing stolen sex tapes and nudes... as long as it's not of an attractive woman.

Talk about a thread hijack. Trying to figure out how my pointing out the financial advantages of bankrupting a business, then buying it at firesale price is somehow related to GamerGate , NeoNazis, or whatever the fuck the fappening is. What's next, Dogs and cats living together?

Hell, that vicegrip process is roughly how I bought my house. Took a downturn in the local economy, and a house that had been sitting a while for sale. The owners had built a new house, and were in a bit of financial trouble with

The anger directed at Thiel over the Gawker case is reminiscent of the anger about the DNC's hacked emails. Those who are angry completely overlook that if Gawker/the DNC hadn't done anything wrong, there wouldn't have been any fallout in the first place. Gawker never would've been sued for publishing Bollea's sex tape. There would've been no evidence of the Democratic party leadership tampering with the primary process. They don't want to hear the message, so they do their best to ignore it and try to shoot the messenger.

I hear your message - maybe not the one you intended. You do know that both parties were hacked don't you? You do know that the Republican Party actively tries to ensure that only the "right" Republicans are representing. Google "war on moderate Republicans". Both parties pull this crap. Are you pleased that only the DNC hack has been made public?

My statement has not Republican or Democrat content, there are many different color crayons in the box. I have no dog in this fight, merely point out a financi

Billionaire whining that he can't buy the critics he used his wealth to destroy in the first place. One of the more despicable things I've seen in my life. (And there's been a lot of competition for that lately.)

Billionaires wanting to destroy critics? Look no further than Media Matters. In a 49-page document marked PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL, the entire anti-Trump plan is laid out. Called "DEMOCRACY MATTERS, Strategic Plan For Action", it lists four leftist partner organizations: Media Matters, American Bridge 21st Century, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and Shareblue. These are some of the most well-funded, well-entrenched, and well known leftist organizations in America. Billionaire George Soros is a key backer. Despicable, you say?

I agree with the other guy. Gawker was garbage. And I'd bet a dollar that if they had released tapes of Bill Clinton fondling a secretary against her will you would be the first in line to call Gawker evil.

It's not "being gay is magical armor" it's "treat gays like human beings for fuck sake (which many republicans still have issues with)" which means they can do bad things and be hated on.

If that was the case, then you wouldn't have the word "faggot" in your comment subject. The second a homosexual does something that doesn't fit into your ethical framework, people like the AC op call him a "faggot" and a "traitor".

You can't use a historically bigoted insult, then just claim you are treating Thiel like a regular human being that has done a bad thing.